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Andreas Kambanis

Waiting for review – Those painful moments in the run up to an app launch

March 5, 2014 by Andreas 28 Comments

Juicing app coming March 4th

 

You’ve worked hard on your app, you’ve tweaked and re-tweaked the design, tested the different elements, coordinated teams across many time zones, managed different priorities, worked to craft the marketing strategy and you’ve told people:

“The app will be live on the 4th of March”.

You know that the average time it takes for an app to be approved by Apple is around 6 to 7 days. From experience and from checking the latest figures from fellow developers. Therefore, you’ve submitted the app to them in time to accommodate for 7 days, and you’ve set the release date to the 4th inside the dashboard as you know you should.

The first 5 days fly by, you don’t even check your iTunesConnect dashboard.

On the 6th day, you login. It still says “Waiting for review”.

iTunes Connect Waiting for review

You feel yourself gulp. Doubt creeps in: “Should I have aimed to submit the app to them sooner? Is this not going to be approved on time?”.

No surely not, surely it’ll be approved you tell yourself.

You start checking the dashboard every 30 minutes, to be greeted by the message “Waiting for review”.

You tell yourself you’re being silly, so you leave it.

The next morning you login, still “Waiting for review”.

Tomorrow was supposed to be the day of the launch. You start checking the figures and see that some developers are reporting 5 days, others 12.

Screen Shot 2014-03-04 at 10.30.45

 

Oh no – what now? You resolve to wait, surely in the next few hours it’ll change from “Waiting for review” to “In Review” which will be followed a few short hours later by “Ready for Sale”. But it doesn’t happen.

You’re panicking, how long can I wait? The app should have been available by now in Australia.

You check the figures again and again, refreshing the screen, and it’s driving you insane. You can’t get any other work done, you’re too focused on this. Staring at the screen willing it to change.

It’s too late. Even if switched to “In Review” you’d still not be in time to launch on the 4th of March as promised to the client and your business partner. You feel silly, but you craft an email, apologise, and ask everyone to hold off announcing the app’s availability until the next day.

You pride yourself on good work, and you have to admit you’ve failed.

You fall asleep, wake up the next day and refresh the screen:

“Waiting for review”.

What? Seriously Apple, come on, cut me a break!

You make some breakfast, start planning for the worse if the app isn’t approved and keep checking.

“Waiting for review”

“Waiting for review”

“In Review”

Screen Shot 2014-03-04 at 10.30.34

 

Those magical words appear. You feel like jumping up and down! You proudly announce to everyone that we’re on to launch on the 5th of March.

You feel a weight lifted off your shoulders. A few hours later, you see the next message:

Screen Shot 2014-03-04 at 15.02.25

 

We’re ready to rock!

The next waiting game begins. You wait for the promotions to start, and the figures to come in.

Two lessons learnt:

  • Give yourself extra time when you submit an app for review by Apple
  • Keeping your eyes on the clock only makes it worse

Filed Under: Mobile

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Filip says

    June 20, 2014 at 4:13 pm

    Haha so true! First app is waiting for review..
    So exited!!

    Reply
  2. Clément says

    July 11, 2014 at 9:27 am

    Very amusing ! I’m actually living the same insanity right now.
    My app just went “In Review” (after 7 days “Waiting for review”) and it’s driving me crazy. As you said, can’t get any other work done, too nervous !…
    Oddly, it went “In review” in a very inappropriate time range (around 1.30am Cupertino time)… So I might have to wait a full day before getting news about it.
    Thanks for sharing this experience 🙂 (and sorry for my english, I’m french).

    Reply
  3. NBP says

    July 12, 2014 at 5:29 pm

    It’s the kind of post where you don’t know if to laugh or cry. I’m still in “waiting for review” after 7 days. Thank you for cheering me up.

    Reply
  4. Marc says

    July 21, 2014 at 6:15 pm

    Nice to hear there was a happy ending 😉

    Reply
  5. Ben Byrne says

    August 4, 2014 at 6:01 pm

    This is hilarious. Very funny post. I’m going through the exact same thing!

    Reply
  6. Drew says

    August 20, 2014 at 1:22 am

    Spot on.

    Reply
  7. Alan Escobar says

    August 22, 2014 at 6:27 pm

    For every app, the same thing 🙁

    Reply
  8. Oliver Perez Camargo says

    August 29, 2014 at 9:05 pm

    Or when you receive an error status after the long and painful wait…

    Reply
  9. Nnabike says

    September 5, 2014 at 5:48 pm

    hahaha. Awesome. I’m currently waiting for review. This post says it all.

    Reply
  10. Dave Mikesell says

    September 6, 2014 at 6:47 pm

    I love Apple devices, but their app review process is a joke. You can propagate a new Android release in roughly 90 minutes, but for iOS, as you stated, it takes on the order of a week or longer. Currently “Waiting for Review” 11 days later for my latest release.

    Of an app that they ALREADY APPROVED!

    The review staff is either understaffed, incompetent, or both.

    Reply
  11. Casper says

    October 1, 2014 at 9:24 pm

    Haha yes! I know what you mean!

    Reply
  12. Salaheddine says

    October 8, 2014 at 3:04 am

    as you said, very painful to get from waiting for review to in …!

    Reply
  13. Ted says

    October 15, 2014 at 12:53 am

    Yeah my app is in Waiting For Review state, and I am checking iTunes Connect every 30 minutes in my office!

    Reply
  14. Ben says

    October 18, 2014 at 9:27 am

    just what i feel right now “Keeping your eyes on the clock only makes it worse”! ;P

    Reply
  15. Payal says

    December 14, 2014 at 2:41 am

    Same scenerio…. waiting…
    Can’t focus even on the launch party which is scheduled in next 4 days.
    As saying goes’ it’s late..but,not the end.

    Reply
  16. tanvi says

    January 3, 2015 at 12:34 pm

    7 days and still “waiting for review”. Pulling my hair out every hour now!!

    Reply
  17. Jeihun says

    March 12, 2015 at 10:55 pm

    hahaha … You give me hope. but I’ve been waiting 7 days :'( i act like a really stupid.
    upload date Mar 06, 2015 a:) and now Mar 13, 2015 . i hope it will not take much more.

    Thank you for this nice post 🙂

    Reply
  18. Hanajify says

    April 8, 2015 at 9:00 pm

    Ok so my app just changed to in reveiw!!! I have waited two weeks for it to change but how much time does it need to appear on the app store

    Reply
  19. Mircea G. says

    May 26, 2015 at 11:36 pm

    Damn true! I’m going through the exact same thing right now, still “waiting for review”.

    Reply
  20. Enes says

    June 20, 2015 at 3:16 pm

    Haha Damn true!

    Reply
  21. Reinhard Nhexia says

    June 25, 2015 at 5:55 pm

    same here after 7 day “in review”, how many hours or days for the “ready for sale”?

    Reply
  22. XXX says

    July 13, 2015 at 8:41 pm

    I’m still in waiting for review after 8 days. :/

    Reply
  23. CyberCam says

    August 12, 2015 at 4:55 am

    My birthday is march 5th so YAAAYY

    Reply
  24. YoChan says

    August 25, 2015 at 4:56 pm

    Same thing except it was rejected because I disabled ads on purpose! Now I got to wait all over again 🙁

    Reply
  25. Joe says

    November 6, 2015 at 2:32 am

    If the average review time is 7 days, you don’t promise 7 days. It’s just an average, and what if the app is rejected! There’s just no guarantee from Apple; therefore, it would be irresponsible for YOU to guarantee a specific date yourself unless it is a worst-case date and allows for multiple submissions or you absolutely know your submission will be accepted.

    Reply
  26. Ade says

    November 18, 2015 at 11:14 pm

    Thanks guys for your msgs. I just started my ‘waiting for review’ yesterday with Apple, and I have checked uncountable times already! I found your msgs when trying to find out how long the wait . Now that I know the situation, I will learn from your experiences and check once a day from now on and concentrate on other platforms and give myself another 10 days!

    Reply
  27. Gopi says

    November 27, 2015 at 7:16 am

    So true Andreas!! I have submitted my app for review 2 weeks back. First it was a binary rejection and now a metadata rejection. The worst part is for even a minor correction you gotta go back and stand last in the queue..

    This is like asking a customer who doesn’t have change at checkout of a supermarket to go back and stay in the que to come back with exact denomination.. Absurd!

    Gotta live with it… no choice to swim, but cross the toll-bridge!!!

    Reply
  28. Jordan says

    June 22, 2016 at 2:36 pm

    The wait is killing me! The app that I made isn’t even that complex. Thanks for the narrative.

    Reply

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